The interest in Jenny Lind’s marriage is as varied as it is tender and respectful. There is scarce a woman in the land, probably, who, if she felt at liberty to do so, would not send her a bridal token. But there is more than a sisterly well-wishing, in the general excitement among her own sex on the subject. The power, in one person, of trying, purely and to such completeness, the two experiments for happiness—love and fame—were interesting enough; but it is strange and exciting to see the usual order reversed—fame first, and love afterwards. To turn unsatisfied from love to fame, has been a common transit in the history of gifted women. To turn unsatisfied from fame to love—and that, too, with no volatile caprice of disappointment, but with fame’s most brimming cup fairly won and fully tasted—is a novelty indeed. Simple every day love, with such experience on the heart’s record before it, has never been pictured, even in poetry.
Jenny Lind has genius, and the impulses and sensibilities of genius are an eternal Spring. She is more right and wise than would seem probable at a first glance, in marrying one younger than herself. The Summer and Autumn of a heart that observes the common Seasons of life, will pass and leave her the younger. Her prospect for happiness seems to us, indeed, all brightness. The “world without” well tried, and found wanting—public esteem wherever she may be, and fortune ample and of her own winning—the tastes of both bride and bridegroom cultured for delightful appreciation, and the lessons of the school of adversity in the memory of both—it seems as if “circumstances,” that responsible committee of happiness, could scarce do more. Frau Goldschmidt will be happier than Jenny Lind, we venture to predict. God bless her!
THE KOSSUTH DAY.
THE MAGYAR AND THE AZTEC, OR THE TWO EXTREMES OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT.
The great Magyar’s first impression of Broadway—if he was cool enough to lay it away with tolerable distinctness—will be as peculiar material for future dream and remembrance as any spectacle in which he could have taken part. The excessive brilliancy of the weather made a novel portion of it, to him. They do not see such sunshine nor breathe such elastic air where the world is older. It was an American day, juicy and fruity—a slice, full of flavor, from the newly-cut side of a planet half eaten. But there were features in the pageant, beside, which were probably new to the Magyar. A town all dressed with flags and transparencies, and streets crowded with people, he may have been welcomed by, before. Poles and bunting are easily made enthusiastic, and so are the crowds afloat in a large city. We went out, for one, expecting these demonstrations only. What was new—what gave the Magyar a welcome unforeseen and peculiar—was the two miles of French bonnets and waving cambric pocket-handkerchiefs through which he passed—two miles of from three to six-story houses, and every window crowded with fair faces, and alive with gloved hands waving the perfumed white flags of individual admiration.
The ladies of America have received Kossuth as their hero—and this is not a trifle. It might readily have been foreseen, however. The dominant intellect and purpose that can control the mind of a nation, and the perseverance that can follow its cause to imprisonment and exile, make a statesman and patriot worth seeing—even if that were all. But Kossuth is, besides, “potent with sword and pen”—he is, besides, eloquent beyond all living men—he is, besides, heroic-looking, courteous and high-bred—and he is, besides all this, a faultless husband and parent. That he dresses picturesquely in furs and velvet, wears “light kid gloves” and a moustache, and has a carefully set feather in his hat, may be disparagements among the men—but not among the ladies. He is, to them, all that he could be or should be—nothing that he should not be. And when we remember what the ladies are, in our country—free to read, and expand in intellect, while their husbands and brothers drudge and harrow—we can safely repeat what we say above, that the lady-constituency which welcomed Kossuth to America, and will sustain him here, is by no means a trifle.
It was really curious, (to leave speculation and confine ourself to description, that is more amusing,) to be one in the crowd on the reception day, and observe the character of the enthusiasm. We followed the carriage of Kossuth, ourself, from the Astor House to Leonard street—half-a-mile—and can speak of Broadway for that much of his progress. In this country (where there is no window tax, and every house is as full of windows as a sieve is full of holes,) the houses look like flat-sided beehives, to a foreigner’s eye; and the sudden outbreak, apparently, of every brick with a pocket-handkerchief, as he rode along, must have seemed to Kossuth very extraordinary. The houses looked hidden in snowflakes of immense size. It was an aisle between walls of waving cambric—and, either from the oddity of this phenomenon, or from the attractive glimpses of the smiles behind them, all eyes were on the windows and handkerchiefs, none on the sidewalks and soldiers. As far as we saw, it was a show of elegantly-dressed ladies, throughout; and, of the beauty and taste of the city, the discriminating Magyar can have received no indifferent idea. We did not know, (or had “forgotten, in the press of business,”) that so much loveliness was around us, and we are very sure that Kossuth will never see so much assembled in any city of Europe.
The rest of the show—the troops, flags, arches and civic ceremonies—are over-described in the other papers; and, of Kossuth himself we omit any special mention till we have seen him closer and heard him speak. In our next number, perhaps, we shall be able to portray him for our distant readers, with some material for accuracy.
At the same time that the “greatest specimen of humanity” was thus passing in triumph on one side of the Park, the smallest specimen of humanity was comfortably lodged upon the other. We crossed over—partly to astonish the same ten minutes with a sight of the two extremes of human nature, (contrasts so help one to realize things,) and partly in the way of humble servant to our readers, for whom we are bound to take every means to be astonished—and called upon the Aztec Children, at the Clinton. We will precede our account of the visit, by a sketch of the facts concerning them, which we find in the Evening Post:
“The two children of the South American race, commonly called the Aztec Children, have recently been brought to this city. They are altogether the most remarkable specimens of the human species we have seen—decidedly human, yet so variant from the common type of our race, so peculiar in conformation of features, in size, attitude and gesture, that they impress one at first with a feeling for which surprise is hardly the true name. One can hardly help at first looking upon them as belonging to the race of gnomes with which the superstition of former times once peopled the chambers of the earth—a tradition which some have referred to the existence of an ancient race, of diminutive stature, dwelling in caverns, and structures of unhewn stones, which have long since disappeared.